The basic requirements to gas jet cutting equipment employed in rescue and recovery operations include independent functioning, light weight and small size providing for hand transportation, nontoxicity of fuel combustion products, high efficiency and quick starting.
Apart from that, efficient cutting of heterogeneous materials, such as those used for manufacture of airplane skin requires that the gas jet speed be sufficiently high, i.e., above the sonic speed, and that the gas temperature be of the order of +2500.degree. C.
Known in the art is a device for gas jet cutting of materials (USSR Inventor's Certificate No. 258206, IPE E21C 21/00, Journal "Discoveries, Inventions, Industrial Designs and Trade Marks", 1973, No. 41) comprising a head, whose case accommodates a combustion chamber furnished with a cutting gas jet nozzle, and injectors for delivery of fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber.
That prior-art device is designed for working rock, for example, granite and quartz rock, by thermal treatment with a high-temperature and high-speed gas jet.
For setting the required parameters of the gas jet, the combustion chamber of the above-mentioned device is relatively large.
The device uses gasoline or kerosene and air as fuel and oxidizer, respectively.
The fuel-air mixture is ignited on the side of the nozzle by means of an external igniter.
The foregoing design of the device for gas jet cutting of materials does not permit the use thereof for rescue and recovery work in transport because of its heavy weight and large size.
In addition, the prior-art device cannot be efficiently employed for rescue and recovery operations because of its low performance, toxicity of combustion products and long period of preparation before use.